Certifications start to get way out in front of your experience

I'm curious what the community thinks about over certing or getting certifications that are much farther out than the real world experience and/or skills. I believe my certifications match my skill level fairly well. The RMP might of been a little bit of a stretch for my role but all the others are either beginner certifications or align with my skill set extremely well. ITIL CAPM ETC

Right now I don't want to spend the money on certifications, however even if I did I don't think it would be fair to myself or the certification.

I'm close to graduating with my MBA so that is my (main focus) but have thought about certifications. However, I keep thinking "does this make sense". Has anyone ran into this dilemma? If so how did you handle it?

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Comments

About7Narwhal

I too am curious what happens if you jump farther ahead than you can support via live experience vs lab.

powerfool

If you publish all of them in your resume, I think it will not help your job prospects... may even be detrimental.

I think focusing on a single mid-level certification can't really hurt anyone, though (e.g. MCITP:EA, MCSE, CCNP, etc.). Obviously, you crawl before you walk on those certifications, too, so hopefully in the interim you can get more experience.

Psoasman

When I switched from healthcare to IT, I started out with certs. I started with CompTIA trio, then started on Microsoft. After 2 years, I had earned my MCSE:Security, but was only working Help Desk at my current position. Having the extra knowledge has benefited me, especially when troubleshooting possible server issues.

I recently picked up a side job as a sys admin and am actively using the skills from the MCSE and MCTS certs. I also recently applied for a higher level position, but listed the pertitent certs for the position. The CIW certs from WGU will most likely never grace the pages of my resume.

Education = good
Education + certs = better
Education + certs + experience = much better.

paul78

I don't see anything wrong to expanding horizons or gaining knowledge. We have discussed in the past that having certifications doesn't validate career acccomplishments or experience. The act of studying and sitting for the exam is simply one dimension in staying current in IT or gaining new technology knowledge or skills. And if you enjoy technology for the sake of learning, it can be rewarding too. If the certification is too esotoric, there's no need to add it to your resume. My 2 cents for what it's worth.

N2IT

The scary piece is if you spend money on certifications and it actually becomes detrimental like PF mentioned. It would be ashame to spend X amount of resources and Y amount of time to only have to leave it off your resume because of various reason mentioned above.

If I get a certification I want some return including being able to add it to my resume for higher consideration for certain job types.

paul78

I really can't imagine a scenario where learning becomes a detriment to oneself. Most recently, I was talking with my wife about taking the a global history course on Coursera together. Simply for the joy of learning and expanding our mind. There is always value in knowing a different way to do things. If someone is a Windows admin, learning about Linux simply expands their horizon about another way to do things.

I won't speak for PF, but I think that his/her comments were more about not listing everything you do on your resume.

N2IT

paul78 wrote: »

I really can't imagine a scenario where learning becomes a detriment to oneself. Most recently, I was talking with my wife about taking the a global history course on Coursera together. Simply for the joy of learning and expanding our mind. There is always value in knowing a different way to do things. If someone is a Windows admin, learning about Linux simply expands their horizon about another way to do things.

I won't speak for PF, but I think that his/her comments were more about not listing everything you do on your resume.

That's probably what he meant.

With two children and other expenses I just don't find myself having the time or resources. (I actually have both, I just want to make sure the knowledge and return is going to be maximized).

Otherwise I don't see the point. You make some really good points about knowledge in general but your financial situation is probably a lot different than mine. Ideally I would like for the employer to value certification X and pay for my training and allot me time to study for it. That would be ideal.

paul78

Sorry.. Didn't mean to come across that way.. I think you have the right idea though. Available time really is always the constraint. I really do like some of the free resources though like Coursera and EDX. Recently, I do a lot of short quick lectures that I find on youtube. I find that it keeps my mind active. I hope your search is going well.

About7Narwhal

^ I have been doing that as well. More so with books, though. I have a ton of certification books sitting at home that I need to go through and a ton of text books, but I have been trying to make time to learn about the IT industry as a whole in addition to my certification training and school. The technology is only one aspect of our jobs as a whole.

Iristheangel

I get worried when I see someone with little-to-no experience but they have three CCNPs. There was a guy a few months ago on here that posted that over the summer he got his CCNP:Security, Voice and R&S on break from school and he was really hoping he could get his first IT job soon. Not to sound like a cynic but when I see XYZ certifications without the experience to back it up, the worst place my mind goes to is "braindumping." Even if they're not braindumping, I still wonder how much knowledge retention they could have if they are not using it every day. I've met a lot of hiring managers in my career that have thought the same way though but I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions out there. I try to be realistic about certifications - I don't list the ones where I've had extensive knowledge fade due to lack of use or not having an interest in working with that kind of technology. Most people don't do this.

UnixGuy

The problem is, if you don't use it you lose it. I have this problem with my CCNA, the last Cisco CLI I saw was during the CCNA exam in 2007. I forgot 90%+ of the CLI. I still have my networking fundamentals but mostly because I learned that at Uni. In my resume I list CCNA as an expired cert.

kgb

I definitely don't see the sense in personally paying for a cert if I'm not going to list it on my resume. Now, if someone else is going to pay for it...

However, I personally think 80% of certifications are worthless. My boss wanted me to give him a list of my 2013 certification(s) I wanted. I replied back saying I saw no value added to get anymore. I'd rather spend my time learning/performing skills that actually benefit in the real world versus learning how Vendor X expects you to solve problem Y.

instant000

The main risk is of wasting time and energy ... if you don't get enough usage of whatever it is you studied.

N2IT

Thanks for the participation.

All really great points!

kurosaki00

At what point is it ok to get a certain certification with little experience
Like for example, if what you do is reset passwords on windows servers. Would it be ok to pursue something like MCSA?

prtech

I'm a CCNP and I've only been working in the NOC, my first networking job, for about 5 months. I'm already looking to transition into our networking engineering team. I've done several interviews and we are usually impressed by "overcertified" candidates. We can usually rule out the dumpers when we do our technical interview. If we were a company that didn't have growth opportunities, then "overcertified" candidates might be an issue.

paul78

@kurosaki00 - I don't see why not. Just being exposed to the material in the process of preparing for the certification would be worth the effort if your goal is to become a Windows admin in the future.

@iris - I can certainly understand your point of view. But I prefer to interview candidates who are willing to stretch beyond their current capabilities instead being complacent with their existing knowledge. The experience dimension is already factored based on a candidate's previous jobs. But your approach is very pragmatic - i.e. only list the ones that are relevant and active knowledge. But having the background of some technology in past always makes for more interesting conversation during an interview.

I don't dispute that if you don't use skills, you could lose it. But to me, knowing that someone has accomplished a cert is a bit more than knowing the individual knows some specific set of commands or how to setup some configuration. It's the underlying knowledge and hopefully broader exposure that the individual has gained.

We've all talked about how having certificates doesn't earn someone a job or even necessarily qualifies them for a specific role. I'm someone that never held much value in having certificates for myself. But I also recognize that if someone else holds some particular certification, there was probably some learning effort to gain that certificate.